Beautiful
by turtle1227
Summary: In which Felicity tries to be prettier and Oliver tries to help her in the only way he knows how: by telling she's beautiful. Rated T for slight eating disorder.


For the sake of the story, I think Oliver and Felicity are a bit OOC, but I just imagined Felicity might be a little self-conscious, and I love the idea of Oliver comforting her and calling her beautiful.

* * *

It started out small. Skipping breakfast, exercising a bit more than usual. Harmless enough. Right? It was, until it escalated so far Felicity hardly knew who she was anymore. All the long nights at the Arrow Cave had taken a toll on her. She had started to become easily irritable, although when she was aware of it she tried her best to keep it under control. Being around Sara didn't help much. Felicity knew how Oliver saw Sara. The gorgeous long-lost lover who could help him protect the city.

And Felicity knew how Oliver saw her. The nerdy computer hacker who could hardly protect herself. She accepted it. It was just the way things were. But seeing Sara, how lovely and thin and fit she was, made Felicity extremely self-consious. Sure, Sara was nice and funny and talented, and sure, it was always helpful to have a trusted addition to the group. Felicity understood that it was stupid to be jealous. She just couldn't help it.

Skipping breakfast soon turned into skipping lunch, and that's when her unplanned plan went a little haywire. Oliver began asking her questions, practically interrogating her, about why she wasn't eating.

"I'm not hungry."

"I ate earlier."

"My stomach hurts."

"I'm going out with some friends later."

Oliver was clearly skeptical, but he let it go. Until today. For some reason, she just really stuck out to him today, and he couldn't take his eyes off of her. And not in the good way. No one else was down there, so Oliver carefully approached her desk at which she was sitting. "Felicity," He said, a bit stiffly. She spun around. "Yeah?" Her clothes hung loosely on her. "We need to talk." Her fake smile vanished. "About?" Her bright, eccentric eyes were now closed off and dull. "Are you okay?" Of course she wasn't okay. He knew it, she knew it, and it was only a matter of time before they both realized it.

"Peachy. Why?" No rambling. His breath caught. "Dieting...like you are...is not healthy." Why not be blunt?

She averted her eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about." He took a step closer. "I think you do." It killed him. "Oliver, you don't understand. You can't. So just let it go, okay?" He had blown it off before. He was not making that mistake again. "Help me to understand. Talk to me, Felicity. Explain to me why you feel the need to starve yourself." Her head snapped up at his words. Starve yourself. As much as she'd like to deny it, she supposed that was the term for what she was doing. No point in arguing about it now. That would just delay the inevitable. Might as well just get it over with.

"I see Sara and Laurel and the other women at Queen Consolidated, and, I don't know. I guess I saw what they were and what I wasn't and what I could be." Felicity never realized how good it might've felt to get that all off her chest. She shot a quick glance up at Oliver, who was obviously, if nothing else, confused. "Wait...you were starving yourself...because you thought you weren't as pretty as them?" Felicity looked down sheepishly. "Well, yeah, I guess." Her voice was impossibly soft.

Oliver knelt down in front of her, his large, calloused hands enveloping her small delicate ones. "Felicity Smoak...For someone so smart, you sure are being incredibly stupid." His words startled Felicity. Stupid was the only insult that had never been thrown at her. "Excuse me?"

"You are, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful women, inside and out, that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. You light up every room you walk into. Everyone else, they've got nothing on you. You are one of a kind, one in a billion, and I can't imagine my life without you." Felicity was speechless. Oliver had just emptied his heart to her, hell, he had called her beautiful. She never imagined those words coming out of his mouth. She realized she was sitting there, silently, like an idiot.

Shockingly enough, Oliver wasn't even finished yet. "So please, stop doing this to yourself. You don't deserve it, and I can't stand to see it. I promise, you're beautiful." Felicity was on the verge of tears. "Thank you." She muttered hoarsely. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, and was comforted by the fact that he hugged her back equally as tight.


End file.
